Installation

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This topic describes how to install, upgrade or remove RAD Studio.

Installing RAD Studio

Before You Install RAD Studio

The Installation Notes page describes the RAD Studio system requirements and other information that you must know before you decide to install RAD Studio.

You can install RAD Studio Athens on a system where previous versions of RAD Studio are installed. Note, however, that each version of RAD Studio extends your PATH environment variable, which cannot be longer than 1830 characters before you install RAD Studio Athens.

Choosing an Installer

To install RAD Studio, you can either use the Online Installer or use the Offline Installer.

The Online Installer is the best choice for most use cases, as it provides:

  • A much lower installation time, as well as a much lower time to modify installed features after the initial installation.
  • A higher flexibility to choose features:
    • You can choose specific combinations of target platforms and programming languages instead of choosing programming languages and target platforms separately.
    • You can remove support for any programming language after the installation.
  • A much lower installer size: 0.2 GB. Anything else is downloaded on demand based on the features that you choose to install. Also, you do not need to keep the Online Installer around after the initial installation. You can use the IDE to modify installed features.
  • A better user experience. The installation steps are more straightforward.

However, use the Offline Installer if:

  • The machine where you want to install RAD Studio does not have a working internet connection.
  • The drive where you want to install RAD Studio does not have enough space if cache files are installed on the same drive. The Offline Installer allows you to customize the temporary storage folder.
Tip: If you use the Offline Installer, RAD Studio will still be able to access the GetIt Package Manager if you are online, but you won't be able to see proper information about Patches and Promoted packages in the Welcome page until you manually switch to "online mode". To do this, we recommend using the GetItCmd.exe tool: GetItCmd.exe -c=useonline
Note: You have to setup the BDS environment variable before using GetItCmd.exe. To do this you can run the following command:

set BDS=C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\Studio\21.0

Or execute:

%BDS%\bin\rsvars.bat command file.

Running the Chosen Installer

If you chose the Online Installer, follow the instructions in Using the Online Installer.
If you chose the Offline Installer, follow the instructions in Using the Offline Installer.

Switching Installers

To switch from the online installer to the offline installer, or vice-versa, use the GetItCmd.exe tool: GetItCmd.exe -c=useonline or -c=useoffline.

Silent Installer

RAD Studio supports silent, automated installation without UI interaction. Silent installation is available in two different scenarios:

  • Offline installation, based on the GOF file and the setup executable.
  • Online installation, based on the setup executable and an automatic download of the required packages in the background.
Note: The Windows SDK installation currently starts with a UI and doesn't respect the "silent installation" rule.

If you choose to run the Silent Installer, follow the instructions in Using the Silent Installer.

After You Install RAD Studio

The following sections describe some steps that you may need to take after you install RAD Studio Athens.

Importing Settings from Previous Version

If you have a previous version of RAD Studio installed in your system, use the Settings Migration Tool to migrate your old settings to your RAD Studio Athens installation.

Installing the New Platform Assistant

If you plan to deploy applications for macOS or iOS, or if you plan to deploy applications for 64-bit Windows using a remote system, you must install on your Mac or on your remote 64-bit Windows system the Platform Assistant provided with RAD Studio Athens. You cannot reuse the Platform Assistant from a previous version of RAD Studio.

Tip: You can run different versions of the Platform Assistant simultaneously on the same system as long as you use a different port number for each instance.

Updating Template Files

Projects for macOS, iOS, or Android include template files that allow you to customize certain aspects of your application for those platforms. When you migrate a project from a previous version of RAD Studio to RAD Studio Athens, you must:

  1. Create a backup of any customized template file, so that you can check your custom changes later.
  2. Remove all template files from your project folder.
  3. Build (Android) or deploy (macOS, iOS) your application for each target platform so that RAD Studio Athens automatically generates an up-to-date version of each template file.
  4. Edit the new template files to apply your custom changes, if any.

For more information, see:

Adding or Removing Features After the Installation

During the installation of RAD Studio, you can enable or disable several features: support for programming languages, support for target platforms, language packs, and so on. You can add or remove any of these features after the installation.

If you installed RAD Studio using the Online Installer, follow the instructions in Adding or Removing Features Using the Feature Manager.
If you installed RAD Studio using the Offline Installer, follow the instructions in Adding or Removing Features Using the Offline Installer.
If you installed RAD Studio using the Silent Installer, follow the instructions in Adding or Removing Features Using the Silent Installer.

Removing RAD Studio

The user with Administrator privileges who initially installed RAD Studio can remove RAD Studio following the steps described in Repair or remove programs in Windows 10.

Removing RAD Studio Instances that Use Network Licenses

After you remove RAD Studio, each user who is not the Administrator must remove user-specific data from the Windows registry:

  1. Log in to the user account.
  2. Make a backup of the registry.
  3. Launch Regedit or another registry editing tool.
  4. Delete the following registry key:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Embarcadero\BDS\23.0

Removing Configuration Files

After you remove RAD Studio, user-specific data, such as default project settings, might remain in configuration files. You should manually remove these folders:

  • All Users\Application Data\Embarcadero\BDS\23.0
  • All Users\Shared Documents\Embarcadero\BDS\23.0

Upgrading RAD Studio Athens

Attention: You do not need to follow these steps to install a different version of RAD Studio. Different versions of RAD Studio can coexist on the same system.

To replace RAD Studio Athens with a better edition or an update of RAD Studio Athens, you must remove RAD Studio Athens from your system and install your upgraded edition or update of RAD Studio Athens.

See Also